Pages

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Documentary: Mode Activity 3

This doc mode assignment consists of the exposition for my
final project.The modes I was trying
most to embody were autobiographical, performative, and essayistic.There are also moments of observational mode,
and a few reflexive moments, so if the ultimate result succeeds in being
essayistic, then I’ve successfully embraced the marriage of modes that Fox
attributed to essayistic documentaries.

The autobiographical elements are obvious.The content for these shots come from my
real-life.About half of them are
reenactments of things I actually do on a normal basis, and the other half are
me turning the camera on things that were going to happen anyway, although they
inevitably happened differently with a camera rolling, if only because we had
to pause to set it up and press record.

Also, I feel that because the images here become subservient
to the voice-over, that the shots take on a performative mode within the
context of the whole piece (this may become more apparent in the final film,
where there are more whole-heartedly performative elements).The shots of daily tasks become more about an
essayistic idea being conveyed than about my particular unique experience.At least I hope I ultimately manage
that.I’m trying to emphasize the
universality of my experience, rather than the singularity of it.The voiceover feels like the element that
ultimately renders the essayistic mode dominant for this piece, though that may
be a stronger thread running through the finished piece than it is through this
exposition.

I did find the autobiographical mode, turning the camera on
myself, to be an intensely tricky endeavor.When I’m the one authoring the piece, and I’m also the one providing
almost all of the social acting, figuring out both what I want to capture and
how I’m going to provide it for myself, there is an internal conflict of
interest in everything I do. With limited control over my environment anyway,
to be torn between my embedded social acting -trying to manage how I am
perceived - and my need to portray myself as a character - having less concern
about how I am perceived than about how best to tell the story – was an
exercise in extreme discomfort and awkwardness.